J. Mark Kohler Bio

Born in Austin, watercolorist Mark Kohler depicts the independent spirit of the modern working cowboy with all the admiration he feels for his proud subjects. “I applaud the values and self-sufficiency of the working cowboy…Each painting becomes an opportunity to portray my subjects as they deserve to be, with dignity”

Kohler was trained as an illustrator, and is a perfectionist by nature. He gets to know each of his subjects personally and has spent the past decade traveling in Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Montana, and California compiling images of working cowboys with which he portrays this disappearing icon.

Kohler’s work has received much national attention. In 2001 and 2005, he was invited to hang his work at the Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball for President Bush in Washington DC. In 2004 and 2005 his work earned him first-place honors in the watercolor division at the Phippen Museum of Western Art in Prescott Arizona. His work has been published in several books, including his own: Mark Kohler, Working Cowboys.